


Belong

by RaeDMagdon



Series: Rybee [1]
Category: Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: F/F, Fingering, First Time, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Oral, explicit - Freeform, melding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-28
Updated: 2017-03-28
Packaged: 2018-10-12 04:43:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10482336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RaeDMagdon/pseuds/RaeDMagdon
Summary: "The process is almost routine for her: get in, get out, get off. Those were the three steps. Only scratch the surface. Never really meld, and never dig deep. But this? This… thing… she and Ryder are about to do? It’s brand new. She wants to dig. She wants to delve into the unknown."





	

**Author's Note:**

> So, since the ME:A scene with Peebee very very mildly went against my previous asari headcanons, I'm going with: asari need some kind of connection to come, but it can be a very light and brief one that doesn't need much, or any, intimacy. Peebee's never really melded before.
> 
> Some notes about my Ryder: this one is female, logical/professional (but Peebee brings out her goofy side on rare and special occasions), Asian descent (default face #5), and trans (but that's a very minor detail)

Peebee has never done this before.

Sex? Sure. Sex is nothing new for her. She’s had it plenty of times, with plenty of attractive people, in plenty of interesting places. It had even begun drifting into ‘been there, done that’ territory before her move to Andromeda. The process is almost routine for her: get in, get out, get off. Those were the three steps. Only scratch the surface. Never really meld, and _never_ dig deep.

But this? This… thing… she and Ryder are about to do? It’s brand new. She wants to dig. She wants to delve into the unknown.

She’s terrified. Or maybe she isn’t? Her mind is a swirling mess of feelings, knots upon knots of strings.

Looking down doesn’t help. Ryder is splayed beneath her, still in her clothes—that dorky jacket and scarf that are a less awesome version of hers. Right now, they’re covering far too much. Peebee desperately wants to take them off, but she’s afraid her hands will shake while she removes them. For once, she has no idea where to start.

Drowning in silence, her first instinct is to make a joke. She’s used up all her practiced lines, and she doesn’t have a recording to do the rest of the hard work this time. “So, do you really need directions?” she asks with an awkward chuckle. “You’re supposed to be the _Path_ finder. Pathfind your way somewhere interesting.”

Ryder seems to sense her distress. That’s no surprise. Despite the formal attitude she puts on, Ryder’s got a bigger heart than anyone Peebee has ever met. It always bleeds through, even when she’s trying to be professional.

“It’s okay, Peebee,” Ryder murmurs. Her voice is tender, reassuring. “No pressure. I already love my surprise.”

Love.

Just thinking that word sends little crackles of electricity crawling along Peebee’s skin. Her flesh is tingling, kind of like it does just before she charges. She feels alive, and scared, and exhilarated. It’s the thrill of discovery, and she isn’t going to back down. Not from what might just be her greatest find yet.

Her hands do shake as she grasps the front of Ryder’s jacket and leans down for a kiss, but it doesn’t matter. Ryder’s lips are warm and welcoming enough to distract her from her own awkwardness. They haven’t kissed much—haven’t had time, searching for the Meridian and dodging Kett—and the few they’ve stolen (mostly by the escape pods and once in the bathroom) were much too rushed.

Peebee suddenly realizes she doesn’t have to rush this time. Ryder isn’t going anywhere, and for once, neither is she. She kisses Ryder long and slow, learning her mouth properly. She notices everything: the way Ryder moans as Peebee sweeps along her bottom lip, the way Ryder shifts just a little beneath her when their tongues brush, the way Ryder’s hand rubs against the small of her back over and over, teasing the strip of skin just beneath her jacket. The repetitive motion is as soothing as it is arousing.

She lifts up, breaking their kiss, but only to strip her jacket off, throw it aside, and help Ryder do the same. Their shirts are still covering way too much skin, but it’s one less layer to separate them, and Peebee is grateful. She dips down again, drinking in another of Ryder’s moans, reveling in the fact that the sound is all because of her. Never before has she been so proud to give someone else pleasure. To _share_ pleasure. Before, it had always been two people merely taking what they needed—and only what they needed.

The things Ryder makes her need are completely alien.

Pun intended.

She laughs a little into the kiss, and to her surprise, Ryder laughs too. It’s sweet, especially since she’s not usually the laughing type. Each laugh Peebee earns from her feels like uncovering buried treasure, or spotting a shooting star without equipment. Luck, or maybe a bit of a gift.

“Did you really think about doing this when we first met?” Ryder asks.

Peebee is relieved to have a question to answer. Her motor kicks into gear. “You’re joking, right? I wanted to kiss you _and_ the two girls you brought along for the ride. Vetra? I could climb her like a spiky tree. And Miss Commando—”

Ryder presses a finger to her lips. “Peebee?”

Peebee kisses her fingertip. “Kidding,” she whispers, softer. “But not about you. Not about this.” This is probably, Peebee realizes, the most serious she’s ever been about anything.

“Good.” One of Ryder’s hands winds around the back of her neck, caressing the folds there. “Kiss me again?”

Despite the fact that it’s kind of an order, and Peebee has already forbidden Ryder from making those (at least for tonight—later, there will _definitely_ be orders), she wants to kiss Ryder badly enough to overlook it. Their lips linger, and their hands begin to wander too. One of Ryder’s slides beneath the waistband of her pants to cup her backside, and Peebee returns the favor by sliding a palm up along Ryder’s muscular stomach.

Ryder’s skin is different. Peebee’s been with a human or two, but it’s a new enough experience that the tiny hairs still fascinate her. Ryder’s are extremely fine and soft, practically invisible except on her arms, and Peebee can only feel them when she uses the lightest possible touch. She amuses herself that way for a while, feeling all of Ryder’s planes and curves, discovering where she’s soft and where she’s hard.

Somewhere along the way, Ryder’s shirt finds its way to the floor. Hers follows soon after.

Ryder’s breasts are absolutely perfect, just the right size for Peebee’s hands. The light brown tips are already stiff, but she resists the temptation to play with them first thing. Instead, she palms both breasts and squeezes, testing their weight. She must be grinning, because Ryder mirrors the expression. They just stare at each other for a moment, then laugh again, together this time.

“The wonders of hormones and gene therapy,” Ryder says.

Peebee brushes her off. “The wonders of _you_.” She and Ryder have talked about it a little, and coming from a monogendered species, it’s a bit confusing for her, emotionally if not logically. But she doesn’t have to understand every detail. She loves Ryder, every bit of Ryder, exactly as she is. The way Ryder is right now, in this moment? She’s perfect, from the packaging to everything underneath. That’s all that matters. She’s the best woman Peebee has ever known.

She lavishes Ryder’s breasts with all the attention they deserve. She kneads, squeezes, and plucks at the tips, studying Ryder’s reactions closely. They’re all positive, although she kisses Ryder through most of the moans. Ryder’s hands roam along her bare back, stroking at first, then grasping hold, even using the edges of her nails. Peebee relishes the little pinpricks. She wouldn’t mind if Ryder scratched her harder.

Another night, maybe. Another night, they’ll fuck until they’re both walking funny. But there’s something more she needs to do first—something important. “Pants?” she mutters, already beginning to unfasten the buttons of Ryder’s trousers.

“Pants,” Ryder agrees.

Ryder’s come off first, and Peebee tears away from her mouth long enough to help with her own. For once, she wishes they weren’t so form-fitting. With a little assistance from Ryder, she manages to peel them off. It’s strange. Naked, she’s less nervous than she was while wearing clothes. It feels right, like the next step.

She runs her fingers down along Ryder’s stomach, to the wiry patch of black hair there. It’s trimmed in a short triangle, but the light brown skin around it is bare. She can see Ryder’s lips, wet and open. They glisten, and Peebee wants to touch all that soft, shiny skin with her fingertips.

So she does. She plays through Ryder’s heat, amazed at how easily it glides. But Ryder isn’t content to remain passive beneath her. Ryder grasps her hips, and she slides one of her thighs between Peebee’s, offering her a place to grind. She leans up, and Peebee waits for another kiss on the mouth, but instead, Ryder kisses down her neck, heading toward her breasts.

She shudders as Ryder’s warm lips wrap around her nipple and pull. For a moment, she forgets to keep moving her fingers. When she finally remembers, she heads for Ryder’s clit. One of the humans she’d been with in the Milky Way was female, and she remembers how similar to asari they are. The shape’s a bit different, more of a button and less of a ridge, but the concept’s the same. When she hits it, Ryder groans into the pillow of her breast.

Peebee takes that as a sign to keep circling. She rubs the throbbing bud in time with the rolling motion of her own hips. Even though she’d meant to make Ryder come first before diving into the scary, intimate part, she can’t help herself. Ryder drives her crazy. All of this is crazy. Crazy and fantastic.

She’s still determined, though. Even as her azure paints Ryder’s thigh with wetness, she slides down to find Ryder’s entrance. It’s like burning silk, and even with just one finger, it’s so tight. Ryder’s breath hitches, but it’s clearly a sound of pleasure, because she kisses her way across to Peebee’s other breast and starts flicking her tongue over the sensitive tip, nibbling with the very edges of her teeth.

Peebee’s spine aches to arch, but she knows if she does, she’ll break contact with Ryder’s mouth, and she can’t bear the thought. Instead, she pumps her hips faster. It’s a little embarrassing, how fast she’s working herself up, but she doesn’t care. Ryder makes it easy to lose herself. Ryder makes it easy to trust. All thoughts of taking her time are forgotten, but Peebee soothes her disappointment by reminding herself this isn’t a one-time thing. There are strings. She’s staying. They’ll get plenty of chances.

“Is this good?” she pants as she pushes a second finger past Ryder’s entrance. The warmth sealed around them drives her absolutely wild.

 _“Yes,”_ Ryder hisses, biting the soft flesh just above Peebee’s left breast. “So good. Keep going.”

“Wasn’t gonna stop.”

A bit reluctantly, Peebee changes their position. As she works her way down Ryder’s body, Ryder can’t kiss her breasts anymore and she can’t grind, but the new territory her mouth blazes across make the loss worth it. She teases each of Ryder’s nipples, sucking one after the other before licking straight down her stomach. It’s not fair. Even Ryder’s sweat tastes good.

“Peebee…” One of Ryder’s hands slides over the top of her crest, finding a holds in the grooves there.

Peebee ducks beneath Ryder’s knees, placing a soft kiss on her inner thigh. “Shh, Ryder. Let me show you what my mouth’s really good for.”

She isn’t sure what she’s expecting, but the mix of salt and sweetness that spreads across her tongue on the first swipe isn’t it. Ryder tastes stronger than anticipated, but it’s the kind of strong that leaves her mouth watering for more. She dives in with enthusiasm, sure Ryder won’t mind, and she’s right. Ryder clutches the back of her head even harder, heels digging into her back.

Peebee resumes thrusting her fingers, which had been still during her descent. When they begin to stir, Ryder grunts and shudders, and Peebee can feel her clit twitch. She draws it into her mouth, swirling around it in circles, fluttering against the very tip.

Soon, her face is coated with Ryder’s desire. Her cheeks are a mess, because a river is flowing out from beneath her sealed lips and around her curling fingers. It grows every time she hits a certain spongy spot against Ryder’s front wall, and so she focuses on it, timing the strokes to hit with the circles her tongue is making.

“Peebee!” Ryder shouts. Peebee honestly can’t decide whether she likes hearing her name better when Ryder is screaming it, or when she whispers it like a prayer.

For now, shouting will do. She focuses all her energy on making Ryder fall apart, and she succeeds spectacularly. Even sooner than she’d hoped, Ryder’s hips surge up. She goes stiff, trembling from head to toe, and Peebee can feel each pulse that races through Ryder’s inner muscles. She doesn’t let up on Ryder’s clit. Ryder’s release is pounding there too, and so she holds her tongue in place and adds what she hopes is the right amount of pressure.

The sound Ryder makes as she peaks is almost a sob. When she finally sinks into the bed, panting and shivering, Peebee pulls back and smirks, aglow with her success.

“Yeah?” she asks.

Ryder removes one of her hands, flinging her arm over her eyes—but Peebee can still see her huge smile. “Yeah. Wow, Peebee.”

For one perfect moment, Peebee is satisfied. She’s made Ryder happy. She’s done her job. But the satisfaction doesn’t last for long. She needs something more—needs the connection her heart hurts for. And, of course, she still hasn’t given Ryder the surprise she promised.

Her mouth travels back up along Ryder’s stomach, slower this time, savoring. “Do you know about… asari melding?” she asks, her voice trailing nervously as Ryder’s other hand strokes down her back. “Our bodies and minds weave together. Become one.” She scatters kisses across Ryder’s breasts without really touching the sensitive parts. She needs Ryder to hear this without distraction. “I’ve never trusted anyone enough… never trusted myself.”

She waits, worried, until Ryder takes hold of both her Peebee’s hands, lacing their fingers together. “I’ve got you,” she says, like a promise. Peebee can hear it in her voice, can see it in her dark brown eyes. “You’re safe with me.”

Peebee believes it. The back of her neck is tingling so hard it’s almost burning, and a light pulse has started inside her head, although it grows stronger by the second. She feels the urge to reach out, to connect—a natural instinct she’s managed to tamp down every other time… every other time until now. Get in, get out, get off won’t work this time. Scratching the surface with a not-really-meld in order to come won’t satisfy.

She wants to share everything with Ryder. She wants their bodies and minds to unite. All the stupid, sappy poetry traditional asari spout about the holiness and purity of the meld suddenly doesn’t seem so stupid or sappy at all. Not one bit.

Ryder’s hands let go of hers, but only to shift down to her hips, where they find a firm hold. It’s a hold that reaffirms Ryder’s promise: _I’ve got you. You’re safe with me._ The pressure in Peebee’s head builds and builds, but even though it’s screaming to get out, it doesn’t hurt. Ryder could never hurt her. She truly believes that.

In the end, it’s Ryder’s fingers that push her past that final barrier. They sneak down from her waist to slide between her legs, seeking out her clit, and when they hit it, Peebee’s face screws up, her mouth hanging loose. She clamps her eyes shut, holding back tears, and when they fly open again…

She isn’t in her body anymore. Or, more accurately, she’s in two bodies. Hers and Ryder’s. It takes a moment to adjust, to sort out which sensations are hers. She can feel excitement, nervousness, and confusion coming from two directions at once, and it’s almost overwhelming. Eventually, she manages to wrap herself around Ryder and act as a guide. She has to. She feels adrift at sea, but as a human, Ryder has to be even more out of her depth. She draws Ryder in, deep into her mind, into her soul, into a place of swirling blue clouds speckled with stars: the world their joined hearts have built together.

Ryder opens her eyes. Peebee can see them clearly, can see all of Ryder’s face, in fact. She’s glad. This deep, she hadn’t been sure she’d be able to see Ryder at all.

“I—I can’t believe it,” Ryder murmurs. “It’s so quiet.”

It is quiet. There’s a distant humming, and Peebee notices a hint of glowing, geometric red threadwork behind the organic shapes of the vast blue-black galaxy they’ve made, but it’s not too distracting. Other than that, she can’t really sense SAM’S presence. She and Ryder are alone, just liked she’d hoped. Either SAM is leaving them alone, or he can’t reach them here. This is their own private oasis, away from everyone and everything else.

Peebee has always liked being alone, but being alone together with someone else, someone she loves, is better. “We are one,” she says. “This is all ours now.”

Ryder reaches up to caress her cheek, with the hand that isn’t inside her.

“I love you,” they both say at once, in a single voice. Neither of them laugh. It’s almost as if speaking together was intentional—or maybe it _was_ intentional.

They kiss. A new galaxy is born, bound together by threads of love, of trust, of promise. Peebee doesn’t have a trace of fear left. Ryder is within her, steady and sure. Ryder is hers, and she is Ryder’s. They’re all tangled up in each other, and there’s no unweaving the strands.

Peebee’s release—no, _their_ release, hers and Ryder’s together—takes her by surprise. She jerks against Ryder’s knee, into Ryder’s hand, fluttering around the fingers embedded within her. The ridge of her clit pulses against the heel of Ryder’s palm, and from the fierceness and tenderness of Ryder’s kiss, Peebee just knows she’s coming too. Coming with her. Because of her. The wave of their pleasure flings her out into space, and she touches stars she’s never even seen close enough to dream of grasping before.

She doesn’t crash down once she reaches them. She floats there for what feels like forever with her heart soaring highest of all, right alongside Ryder’s. So. So this is what melding with someone and mapping their genes is really like. It’s not scientific at all. It’s pure emotion. It’s beyond words. It’s love made tangible.

But she can’t stay forever. Her body, though distant, is getting tired. She can feel it pulling her gently back to reality. She doesn’t want to leave. She clings to Ryder, desperate to stay, but Ryder just rests their foreheads together. “I’m still here. I’ll always be here. Promise.”

When Peebee opens her eyes, Ryder is still there, just like she promised. Her short black hair is a spiky mess around her head and her shivering body is covered in sweat, but she’s there. Solid, warm, real. Almost as real as she had felt in the meld.

Peebee doesn’t speak right away. She doesn’t need to after what they’ve shared. She lifts herself off Ryder’s fingers, noticing with some pride that she’s drenched them, and flops down next to Ryder on top of the covers. She snuggles in close, resting her forehead near Ryder’s cheek and placing a soft kiss against Ryder’s chin before draping an arm around her midsection.

They breathe together for a long time, their heartbeats in sync, letting the last traces of the meld fade.

“I want you to know,” Peebee says at last, “whatever kept you from saying yes before? I’m glad. I respect it. With strings, it means so much more. This is where I belong.”

Ryder turns her head, letting their noses brush. “This is where I belong too, Peanut Butter. With you.”

“Even though I’m annoying and you’re a stick in the mud who thinks 'Peanut Butter' is a cute nickname?”

“Yes,” Ryder laughs. “Someone’s got to keep you under control. And _you_ came up with the nickname for yourself.”

“Well, someone’s got to remind you how to cut loose and have fun,” Peebee adds. They’re quiet for another moment, lips not quite touching, but it feels like a kiss anyway. “Know what, Ryder?”

“What?”

“This is my best Andromeda adventure so far. Really.”

Ryder brings their lips together for a heartbeat. “Mine too.”


End file.
